A couple of interesting conversations going on on the web...on is at The Boar's Head Tavern.

When tragedy strikes, how do you minister to those affected? Is it wrong to point to the sovereignty of God?

I think it depends on a few things

• whether you're talking to a believer or an unbeliever
• how you handle the conversation with a believer depends on the maturity of the believer
• your own history of hardship

I can say that, from my own history, when I was holding my dying husband's hand; when I listened to his last breath, that it was a great comfort to me to know that my God held my future.

I took solace in the knowledge that I could see only what happens to me in this lifetime; God sees eternity. And even now, in looking back on all that has happened in my life, things work - even really bad things work - in ways that we cannot see in that moment.

It is no small thing to tell a spiritual sibling, "I don't know why this happened...but I trust that God knows."

To an unbeliever, that is nonsense.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

How do you explain the tragedy of the Minneapolis bridge collapse to an unbeliever? Whether you chalk it up to the sovereignty of God or not, the end message should be: Life is short. There are no guarantees. Repent and be saved.
We live in a fallen and sinful world. Mankind started out in Eden, perfectly protected. Through choice, we are now fallen.

Is there grace in this? Yes! The grace is that we are fallen and sinful creatures - and that the way out of this fallen and sinful world is found in Christ. Period.